Heat Treatment Furnace Industry Document

Source: Tianli Technical Service Industry Document

01 Industry Overview

Heat-treatment furnaces are core process equipment dedicated to metal thermal modification, extensively deployed across heavy-industry sectors of hot forging, casting, wind power and petrochemical. The furnaces execute a full spectrum of thermal procedures: pre-forging and pre-casting heating, annealing, normalizing, quenching-and-tempering, carburizing-nitriding, as well as post-weld stress relief. By controlling heating temperature, holding duration and cooling rate inside the closed furnace chamber, the equipment modifies metal microstructure, eliminates residual stress, adjusts hardness, toughness and ductility of workpieces. In practical production, these furnaces assist manufacturers in lowering energy consumption, reducing product rejection rates and stabilizing consistent workpiece quality. The main application scope covers pre-forging heating and post-forging property adjustment for hot-forged parts, property optimization for castings via quenching-and-tempering and carburizing-nitriding, performance conditioning for large-scale wind-power critical components, and post-weld stress elimination for pressure-bearing petrochemical equipment.

02 Petrochemical Industry

Petrochemical pressure-bearing equipment continuously serves under extreme operating environments: elevated temperature, high pressure, hydrogen-rich medium and strong chemical corrosion. Welding work for reactors, towers, storage tanks and pipelines generates high-level welding residual tensile stress. When residual stress couples with high pressure, hydrogen penetration and corrosive media, stress-corrosion cracking and hydrogen-induced cracking may occur, potentially leading to equipment leakage or catastrophic failure. Heat-treatment furnaces perform post-weld heat treatment (PWHT) to resolve these hazards and enhance equipment service safety and service life, without altering workpiece geometric dimensions or shape.
Oversized pressure-bearing components such as reactors, tower vessels, storage tanks and reaction kettles are placed inside heat-treatment furnaces for integral post-weld heat-treatment. For on-site assembled industrial pipelines and external heat-exchanger assemblies, localized furnace thermal treatment can also be applied on weld joints. Inside the furnace, controlled heating, constant-temperature soaking and slow cooling procedures effectively dissipate welding residual tensile stress, improve material toughness of weld seams and heat-affected zones, and lower susceptibility to stress-corrosion cracking and hydrogen-assisted cracking.

Supported thermal processes include integral post-weld heat treatment, annealing, normalizing, quenching-and-tempering and carburizing-nitriding. Application scenarios contain integral post-weld heat-treatment for reactors, towers, storage tanks and reaction kettles, weld heat-treatment for industrial pipelines, and heat-treatment for external heat exchangers. By eliminating welding-related hidden risks, heat-treatment furnaces help petrochemical plants reduce unplanned shutdown accidents and extend the safe service cycle of pressure-bearing facilities.